No One Has Forgotten
by Sylvia Louise
Summary: Squid left her with a shoddy excuse. She's by herself now, and all she has left is his memory.
1. Default Chapter

Disclaimer: I don't own Holes.

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I was beginning to bight my nails again. I always thought it was a nasty habit and it bugged the crap out of me when my friends did it, but now I was being a hypocrite and biting my nails.

I sat there on the floor nervous and on-edge, and everyone there could sense that if they said the wrong thing to me, I would pounce on them. My eyes darted every which way as the others carefully avoided eye contact with me. That was probably the best thing to do. After all, I had done the most nerve-wracking I would ever do in my high school career. I had a right to bight my nails today.

"Hello there." I said cheerfully as I had walked into the room. They had looked at me pleasantly and gave me a fake smile as if they were _really_ happy to see me. I knew as well as everybody else sitting in the hall outside though that they just wanted to get my audition over with and go on to the next one so they could finish this torturous process. It was a long day for them, and I was just another headshot.

So I did my monologue and I sang my song and that was that. I had turned around to the door discouraged, but they informed me I would be coming to callbacks the next day.

Callbacks were over now, and I was patiently waiting for the list to come out to see if I had a part or not. I stared at the group of drama nerds talking in the corner. They were the people that did the play every year. It's kind of a lie to call them nerds, because they were in fact the "cool people" of the school. You know, the beautiful girls that got bad highlights regularly and shopped at their local Banana Republic religiously, and there were those guys that got all the chicks. People that Alan had hung out with before he had disappeared, but he hadn't been a complete reflection of them.

I missed him, and the thought of him made me sad. Where had he gone?

I stared back at the floor, feeling a little bit less nervous and more depressed than anything. It had been a little over half a year since the last time I saw him, and nobody knew where he had gone. I had personally wanted to ask his mother where he was, but everyone knew she was the town drunk and wasn't exactly reliable. Lord knows where his father was though. Alan had been my boyfriend for almost a year and I hadn't even seen his father. Alan didn't want to talk about him though, and we left it at that.

"Hey girl!" said a sweet voice on my left. _Typical_, I though. It was Jenna with some of her minions following her.

"Hi." I said a little less enthusiastically. She was going to ask about Alan. I knew it.

"So…," she said as she sat down, throwing her long, silky hair over her shoulder, "whatcha doin'?"

"Oh," I said, refraining myself from rolling my eyes, "nothing." I smiled at her, putting on a show for everyone to see. Although she hadn't asked about Alan right off, I knew she going to next.

She smiled back at me, pretending she cared. "Hey," she said, "have you heard from Alan at all? We really miss seeing him, and I _know_ he misses us."

_Yeah_, I thought, _if he really did miss you, wouldn't he call you or something, letting you know he cared?_ After all, he hadn't even tried to make contact with me at all, and we had been best friends. "No, I'm sure of where he is."

She sighed, looking concerned. "Oh, that's too bad. Well…let me know if you hear from him. Kay?"

I nodded, not caring anymore. "Sure."

She walked away, smoothing down her hair back to the group she so desperately cleaved to. They were nice, but elitist. They knew it too, and it never bothered them for a minute.

I couldn't forget the day Alan told me he was leaving me for someone else. Little did I know that day that he was also leaving this hick town, and wasn't ever going to be heard of again. I guess that slipped his mind, or hadn't been telling me the truth in the first place. Whatever the circumstances, I had regretted saying the things I said to him that I did every day since he said good bye to me. I just wanted him home, and I wanted to hold him again. He had left a huge, empty void in my life, and now, I had no one but my best friend Roxanne. She was the only that consoled with me, rather than suspecting me of murdering him like everyone else in this pathetic town did. Everyone knew for sure though that he was gone, and he left without a trace.

I came back to realty, noticing that everyone was rushing to the door that led into the choir room. I guess while I had been deep in thought they had posted the play list up. My heart started pounding again.

I pushed my way though the crowd and looked at the list. Of course, Jenna gotten the lead, but I kept readingdown.

I saw my name. I got a part. And Alan wasn't the first thing on my mind anymore.

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A/N All right, that's the first chapter. There's kind of a prelude to this, one of my other ficlets called Regret Your Goodbye. You don't have to read it though to make sense of this story, but if you want to, go right ahead!

So, I'm just a little bit tired of Girl goes to CGL stories, and I wanted to do something different. So…I really hope you liked this, and please, PLEASE review. Okay, bye.


	2. Chapter 2

"Congratuations!" Roxanne squealed as I entered through her doorway. Her short, light brown hair was falling out of its bun in her excitement, and it made her all the more endearing. I love this girl. She bounced around happily and gave me a hug as I stood in the entryway.

"Thank you." I said with a sheepish grin. Yes, I was only cast as one of the townspeople, but I was townsperson #2, and I had a line, and for Roxanne, that was enough reason to celebrate.

"I'm sure you will be wonderful!" she said with the most reassuring smile. "When do you start rehearsing?"

"Ugh, too soon." I said, feigning apathy, though we both knew how excited I was to start doing a play – something that would keep me distracted from the difficult time I was going through.

Roxanne chuckled at my comment and gave me another hug, reminding me of how much I appreciated her. She is the kind of girl that most girls aspire to be. With a healthy self-esteem and a good sense of humor, Roxanne was easily one of the most confident people I had ever met. Though people may gossip about her or call her names, she is completely indifferent to negative comments and brushes them aside, knowing the most important opinion of herself is her own. And she is happy with herself. She is also incredibly patient and understanding, and when I needed someone like her the most, she sort of just came into my life out of nowhere, like an angel. Alan's disappearance, and my depression that followed, had me praying for someone to talk to – because I had nobody. Without her, I would have been in a completely different place from where I am today.

"So," she said as she led me to the kitchen, "I baked you some cookies."

I was surprised. "Oh, Rox, you really didn't have to do that." I said.

"Oh, don't be silly. It took no time at all." She said as she offered me one. Chocolate chip – my favorite. "Also, I just knew that you were going to get a part, so I baked the cookies and ate them as a way of pre-celebration before you came over."

"Is that even a word?"

"Doubt it."

"You pre-celebrated by yourself?"

"Don't judge"

I laughed and accepted her offering, but I needed to get going. "Hey, thanks a lot Rox, but I really just wanted to stop by and say hi before I head home. I need to talk to my mom and then get to work, so I really have to run," I said grudgingly, wanting to stay longer.

"Oh – that reminds me. Your mom called because she thought you were here – I guess she forgot about callbacks – Anyways, she said that she wanted you to come home as quickly as possible." She paused after that, looking a little concerned, thinking about what my mother's cryptic comment could have meant. I stopped putting my backpack on and stared at her, trying to decode her silence. "Did she way why?" I asked.

She shook her head, eyebrows furrowed. I knew what she was thinking, but I didn't want to admit it to myself, because that might make the thought more real.

I nodded to myself. "I guess I'll get going."

For me, living in a small town is tough. Everyone knows who you are, who your friends are, what you're involved in, and even your most well-kept secrets, which tend to get out without you knowing. That's what Alan hated about this town. He hated that everyone pitied him because of his mother, and he especially hated that people thought of him as a lost cause. And while people were surprised that he had left so abruptly, they weren't shocked or especially concerned. He was another delinquent and was probably just getting into the same kind of trouble in another town. I knew him though as a kid who never intentionally would mean hurt anyone, and if he did something wrong, he did whatever it was with good intentions. Him leaving wasn't the cause of fleeing from something bad he got involved in, because he just wasn't involved with anything like that. To everyone who knew him well, his disappearance was probably something more serious that we had not yet realized. It was something that was always on my mind.

The rouge color of the sky flowed over the trees outlining the neat, suburban neighborhoods I saw on my drive home. Perfectly placed with equal distance from one another, they stood there in hopes that eventually they may grow big enough to hide the backyards of all who lived there from the rest of the world, which was the reason they were planted there in the first place. But for now, they were just small, squalid little sticks in the ground that were no more impressive than the other types of plant life starting to grow in this relatively new neighborhood.

My house was on the outskirts of town, where all the older, smaller houses were. I pulled into the drive where I saw my mother's car parked to the side. The sight of it made my stomach jump, only because of the reminder of the phone call she made to Rox's house earlier that day. As I got out of my car, I made an effort to mentally brace myself for whatever news she had to tell me. Maybe it would be something trivial. I secretly hoped it would.

"Hello?" I called out as I entered the house, shutting the door behind me. No one called back, but I knew my mother was around here somewhere. I quickly dropped off my bags by the doorway and ran upstairs, trying to ignore how furiously my heart was beating. I had begun to resent how easily anxious I could get these days. It was as if my body wanted to take on the job my mind was solely responsible for. If only anxiety wasn't a whole body reaction, then my joints wouldn't constantly ache and my sleeplessness would finally cease. But as it were, anything that might have a hint of some dreadful news attached to it would get my whole body in a tizzy. It had happened all too often in the past six months.

I stood in my room in front of my mirror, rubbing my forehead, trying to calm myself down. Inhale, exhale. I gazed back up to the mirror staring at a person that looked like me, but wasn't totally me. She had dark brown hair that was pulled hastily into a ponytail with deep brown eyes to match. Her face no longer glowed like it used to, but was now a pale, dull color that her mother commented on all-too-frequently as looking "unhealthy." Her petite body also seemed too petite these days, lacking an extra five pounds that had been stolen away by the anxiety her body was currently housing. I sighed and stared at this girl. If Alan came back, would he even recognize me? As I stared in the mirror, I realized how the disappearance of my best friend was affecting me. I didn't think he would be gone for this long, and I didn't think my body would take the toll it had.

Looking out the window, I saw my mother in her bright yellow winter coat bringing our dog back in from the backyard. It was winter now, and the brown grass reflected how dry fall had been, and how winter wasn't getting any better. It was bitingly cold these days, which was strange for Texas weather.

I breathed in slowly again, and then breathed out with the same intensity. I began walking downstairs and heard the back door open and then close as my mother cheerfully talked to our dog. I entered out sunroom. "Hey, Mom."

She looked up at me, surprised. "Oh, honey," she said with a smile as she slipped off her other shoe, "I didn't you see there." Her smooth southern drawl moved with the thickness of honey and just as slowly. I silently laughed and waited for her to be done. She stood up and rushed over to me to give me a hug. "How was your day?" she asked.

"Fine." I replied nonchalantly. She looked at me silently and then nodded. "Rox said you called her." I continued, waiting for my mother to respond. "She said you needed me to come home." I tried to wipe away the urgency on my face, but I've always had the weakness of giving away my emotions too quickly.

My mother grinned slightly, but she suddenly got more serious, her few wrinkles deepening, and her green eyes looking at me earnestly. "I saw Alan's mother today at the gas station."

I nodded quickly, waiting to hear more. "Oh?"

"Yes." She continued. "She wants to see you. Wants you to come over and visit with her a little while. She said she hasn't seen you in a long time."

It wasn't the news I had been expecting – the news that I was always hoping for – that Alan was home, but it was something. "I haven't been over there because…well, I just have no reason to go over." I replied curtly, giving away the impatience I have with Alan's mother; the dislike that resurfaces every time I have to encounter that woman.

"I know," my mother said sympathetically, "but it sounded like there was something on her mind, like there was something she wanted to tell you."

I listened intently, and once again, my heart began beating too quickly. My mother sighed and went into the kitchen, stirring the soup that she was preparing for dinner. She stopped and stared at the bowl and looked over at me intently. "It's _something_." she said deliberately. I knew what she meant. I knew she meant that it may be something that would point to his whereabouts; a clue that could trace me to him. She was right. It _was_ something.

My mother smiled and the mood lighted, "Come on," she said, motioning me over, "tell me how your day was." I walked over to her and embraced her, ready to temporarily cast aside my anxiety.


End file.
